The Drones Club series by P.G. Wodehouse The Drones Club series 22 works, 7 primary works The Drones Club is in Mayfair, London, located in Dover Street, off Piccadilly. A drone being a male bee that does no work, living off the labour of others, it aptly describes the contemporary Edwardian stereotype of rich, idle young club members. At the same time, though, it should be pointed out that many prominent members do have useful occupations. Pongo Twistleton, for example, is reading for the Bar, and other members are mentioned as holding down jobs. Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a The Drones Club is in Mayfair, London, located in Dover Street, off Piccadilly. A drone being a male bee that does no work, living off the labour of others, it aptly describes the contemporary Edwardian stereotype of rich, idle young club members. At the same time, though, it should be pointed out that many prominent members do have useful occupations. Pongo Twistleton, for example, is reading for the Bar, and other members are mentioned as holding down jobs.

Wodehouse based the Drones Club on a combination of three real London clubs: the Bachelors' Club (existed around the turn of the century), then mostly Buck's Club (established 1919), and a dash of the Bath Club for its swimming pool's ropes and rings. The fictional Drones barman, McGarry, has the same surname as the Buck's first bartender, a Mr McGarry (Buck's barman from 1919 to 1941, credited with creating the Buck's Fizz and Sidecar cocktails). However Evelyn Waugh declared that the Drones did not resemble any real club in 1920s London.[1][2] A real club has been based at 40 Dover Street since 1893, The Arts Club. Other gentlemen's clubs which have existed on Dover Street, but are now dissolved, include the Bath Club, the Junior Naval and Military Club, and the Scottish Club, as well as two mixed-sex clubs, the Albemarle Club and the Empress Club.

None of these were ever considered among London's 'premier' clubs of the kind found on St James' Street and Pall Mall, and so their ambience often had something of the raucous informality of the fictional Drones Club. About a dozen club members are major or secondary recurring characters in the Wodehouse stories. In addition to Bertie Wooster (Jeeves stories), Pongo Twistleton (Uncle Fred stories), Rupert Psmith (Psmith stories), and Freddie Threepwood (Blandings stories), prominent recurring drones include Bingo Little and Freddie Widgeon, plus Monty Bodkin, Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps, Tuppy Glossop, Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright, Archibald Mulliner, and the club millionaire Oofy Prosser. ...more Blandings Castle Novels | Series | LibraryThing P.G. Wodehouse: A Biography by Frances Donaldson (1982) Series description Since the second book in the Blandings novels, Leave it to Psmith is the last in the Psmith series, one might consider reading the earlier books in the latter series before starting on the Blandings Castle series.

The upper-class inhabitants of the fictional Blandings Castle, including the eccentric Lord Emsworth, obsessed by his prize-winning pig, the "Empress of Blandings", are the subject of eleven novels and nine short stories, written between 1915 and Wodehouse's death in 1975. This series crosses over with the Psmith series and the Uncle Fred series, and also introduces Monty Bodkin, a character who would feature in two further novels. The short stories have all been collected into Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best, but were also published first elsewhere in collections with non-Blandings stories. The short story collection Blandings and Elsewhere includes among its twelve stories six that take place before Summer Lightening, i.e.: "The Custody of the Pumpkin" "Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best" "Pig-hoo-o-o-o-ey" Series?! How do series work? To create a series or add a work to it, go to a "work" page. The "Common Knowledge" section now includes a "Series" field. Enter the name of the series to add the book to it. Works can belong to more than one series.

In some cases, as with Chronicles of Narnia , disagreements about order necessitate the creation of more than one series . Tip: If the series has an order, add a number or other descriptor in parenthesis after the series title (eg., "Chronicles of Prydain (book 1)"). By default, it sorts by the number, or alphabetically if there is no number. If you want to force a particular order, use the | character to divide the number and the descriptor. So, "(0|prequel)" sorts by 0 under the label "prequel." What isn't a series? Series was designed to cover groups of books generally understood as such (see Wikipedia: Book series ). Like many concepts in the book world, "series" is a somewhat fluid and contested notion. A good rule of thumb is that series have a conventional name and are intentional creations, on the part of the author or publisher. For now, avoid forcing the issue with mere "lists" of works possessing an arbitrary shared characteristic, such as relating to a particular place. Avoid series that cross authors, unless the authors were or became aware of the series identification (eg., avoid lumping Jane Austen with her continuators).

Also avoid publisher series, unless the publisher has a true monopoly over the "works" in question. So, the Dummies guides are a series of works. But the Loeb Classical Library is a series of editions, not of works. Helpers P. G. Wodehouse Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index P. G. Wodehouse Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse ( October 15 , 1881 - February 14 , 1975 ) was an English comic novelist , most famously described as "English literature's performing flea." His surname is pronounced "Woodhouse", not "Woadhouse". Best known for the Jeeves and Wooster and Blandings Castle short stories and novels, Wodehouse was also a talented lyricist, who worked with Cole Porter on the musical, Anything Goes . Nicknamed 'Plum', Wodehouse was educated at Dulwich College , and then worked for the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank for two years, though he was never really interested in banking as a career. Having taken up writing seriously, he went to Hollywood , where he was able to earn enormous amounts as a screenwriter.

He married in 1914 , gaining a stepdaughter. After a failed attempt to escape from his home at Le Touquet, France , Wodehouse was taken prisoner in Germany during World War II . Encouraged by fellow prisoners to entertain with witty dialogues, he was persuaded by the Germans to make broadcasts from Berlin poking fun at his dilemma. Wartime England was in no mood for light-hearted banter, however, and the broadcasts led to accusations of treachery. Foremost among his critics was A. A. Milne , author of the " Winnie the Pooh " books; Wodehouse got some revenge by creating a ridiculous character named "Timothy Bobbin," who starred in hilarious parodies of some of Milne's children's poetry. Among his defenders was George Orwell (see links below). The criticism led Wodehouse to move to America. He became an American citizen in 1955 , and made only one more visit to his homeland. He was made a Knight of the British Empire (KBE) in 1975 , shortly before his death. It is widely believed that the honor was not given earlier because of lingering resentment about the German broadcasts.

Many consider Wodehouse as second only to Charles Dickens in fecundity of character invention. His characters however were not always popular with the establishment, notably the foppish foolishness of Bertie Wooster . Papers released by the Public Record Office have disclosed that when Wodehouse was recommended for a Companion of Honour in 1967, Sir Patrick Dean, British ambassador in Washington, argued that it "would also give currency to a Bertie Wooster image of the British character which we are doing our best to eradicate." His novels and stories fall into a number of series: The Blandings books are about the upper-class inhabitants of the fictional Blandings Castle, including the eccentric Earl of Emsworth, obsessed by his prize-winning pig, the "Empress of Blandings". The Ukridge books are about a scheming character of that name. Mr. Mulliner is a long-winded pub raconteur who tells outrageous stories about his family. Many stories were built around the sport of golf , which all characters take deadly seriously, ignoring everything else in life.

The Jeeves and Wooster books, his most famous, feature the ever-optimistic Bertie Wooster, fearsome aunts (Aunts Agatha and Dahlia), and omniscient valet Reginald Jeeves. The raucous Drones Club , a parody of bachelor's clubs once common in London, features in many tales, as does the Junior Ganymede Club, a club for butlers and valets which Jeeves belongs to. Table of contents Uncle Fred in the Springtime Full Moon A Pelican at Blandings Sunset at Blandings Two books that are part of the Blanding Castle series but not listed above are "Blandings Castle and Elsewhere" (1935) and "Leave It To Psmith" (1923). Jeeves: List of books by P. G. Wodehouse | P. G. Wodehouse Wiki | Fandom powered by Wikia P. G. Wodehouse Wiki List of books by P. G. Wodehouse 55pages on Share The following is a complete list of books by P. G.

Wodehouse , including novels and collections of short stories, sorted first by date of publication and later by "series" – i.e. by recurring characters or locations. Wodehouse's work has been anthologized, recompiled, and republished under a great many titles; only the titles as originally published are listed here. Many of Wodehouse's short stories appeared first in magazines and were later published in collections, some of which include tales from several of his canons: Lord Emsworth and Others, for example, contains stories about Blandings Castle , the Oldest Member , Mr Mulliner , and Freddie Widgeon . As a consequence, precise classification of his works into one series or another is impossible; some of the compilations below overlap between series, causing several books to be listed more than once.

UK title and date of publication US title and date of publication Notes Mike 1909 Second half published as Enter Psmith in 1935; both parts released in 1953, the first half as Mike at Wrykyn and the second as Mike and Psmith The Man With Two Left Feet 1933 Three Men and a Maid 1922 The Luck of the Bodkins 1936 The Code of the Woosters 1938 Uncle Fred in the Springtime 1940 Bertie Wooster Sees It Through 1955 How Right You Are, Jeeves 1960 The Brinkmanship of Galahad Threepwood 1965 No Nudes Is Good Nudes 1970 Jeeves and the Tie That Binds 1971 The upper-class inhabitants of the fictional Blandings Castle , including the eccentric Lord Emsworth , obsessed by his prize-winning pig, the " Empress of Blandings ", are the subject of eleven novels and nine short stories, written between 1915 and Wodehouse's death in 1975.

Something Fresh (1915) (U.S. title: Something New) Heavy Weather (1933) Blandings Castle and Elsewhere (1935) – Twelve short stories, six of which are about Blandings; written from 1926 to 1928, they occur before the events of Summer Lightning. Lord Emsworth and Others (1937) – Despite its title, only one of the nine short stories, " The Crime Wave at Blandings ", concerns Lord Emsworth (U.S. title: Crime Wave at Blandings) A Pelican at Blandings (1969) (U.S. title: No Nudes is Good Nudes) Sunset at Blandings (1977) – Wodehouse's final novel, unfinished when he died The Drones Club Edit The members of the Drones Club , a raucous social club for London's idle rich which was born in the Jeeves stories, are the subject of a number of separate stories, told by various narrators.

Young Men in Spats (1936) – Eleven short stories about members of The Drones Club , three told by Mr Mulliner Lord Emsworth and Others (1937) – A story about Dronesman Freddie Widgeon in a book of nine (U.S. title: Crime Wave at Blandings) Nothing Serious (1950) – One Freddie Widgeon in a book of ten A Few Quick Ones (1959) – Ten short stories Golf stories Wodehouse wrote many of his short stories – though no novels – about the sport of golf , which all characters involved consider the only worthwhile pursuit in life. The Oldest Member narrates most of them. The Man Upstairs (1914) – One story in a book of nineteen The Clicking of Cuthbert (1922) – Ten stories, nine told by the Oldest Member (U.S. title: Golf Without Tears) The Heart of a Goof (1926) – Nine golf stories (U.S. title: Divots) Mr.

Mulliner Speaking (1929) – One story in a book of nine Lord Emsworth and Others (1937) – Three stories in a book of nine (U.S. title: Crime Wave at Blandings) Nothing Serious (1950) – Five stories in a book of ten A Few Quick Ones (1959) – One story in a book of ten Plum Pie (1966) – One story in a book of nine Jeeves See also: The Jeeves books The wealthy, foppish Bertie Wooster narrates a number of stories and novels, which, collectively called the Jeeves canon, are Wodehouse's most famous. They recount the improbable and unfortunate situations in which Bertie and his friends find themselves, and the manner in which his ingenious valet Jeeves is always able to solve them. Many of Bertie's problems stem from his aunts, the fearsome Aunt Agatha and loving Aunt Dahlia .

The Man With Two Left Feet (book) (1917) – A collection of thirteen short stories, one of which, " Extricating Young Gussie ", introduces Jeeves, Bertie, and Aunt Agatha, though Bertie's surname may be Mannering-Phipps rather than Wooster. Bertie has a cousin named Gussie Mannering-Phipps. Bertram did not have a surname, and it remains a matter of considerable debate amongst Wodehouse scholars as to whether he was indeed Bertie Wooster, or merely Bertie Mannering-Phipps. The Politeness of Princes and Other School Stories ([ Project Gutenberg] eBook, 2003 ) – A compilation of public-domain school stories A Wodehouse Miscellany ( Project Gutenberg eBook, 2003) – A compilation of public-domain articles, short stories and poetry A Prince for Hire (2003) – Another blending of Psmith, Journalist and The Prince and Betty stories, originally serialised in 1931 References * The Russian Wodehouse Society Bibliography * Plum Sauce: A P.G. Wodehouse Companion by Richard Usborne This page uses content from the English Wikipedia .

The original article was at List_of_books_by_P._G._Wodehouse . The list of authors can be seen in the page history . As with the P. G. Wodehouse Wiki , the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License . Order of P.G. Wodehouse Books - OrderOfBooks.com Home | Characters | Authors Order of P.G. Wodehouse Books Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (1881-1975) was an English author of comic short stories and novels, best known for his Jeeves and Blandings Castle series. Widely considered a master of prose in the English language, the prolific author was admired by fellow contemporary authors such as Hilaire Belloc, Evelyn Waugh and Rudyard Kipling and modern authors such as Douglas Adams , J.K. Rowling and John le Carre . His writing style is known for mixing London clubroom slang with more elegant English. Wodehouse was passionate about golf, which is the subject of many of his stories (such as The Oldest Member), where all of the characters are consumed by the sport. P.G.

Wodehouse became a published author in 1902 with the novel The Pothunters. His final completed novel was Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen (aka The Cat-Nappers). Wodehouse passed away while writing Sunset at Blandings, which was finished and published in 1977. Below is a list of P.G. Wodehouse’s books in order of when they were originally published (as well as in chronological order when necessary): Publication Order of School Books The Pothunters The Gold Bat and Other Stories (1904) Publication Order of Ukridge Books Love Among the Chickens Publication Order of Psmith Books Psmith in the City (1935) Chronologically Order of Psmith Books Mike and Psmith was originally published as part of Mike in 1909 and thus comes first in the series chronologically.

Publication Order of Blandings Castle Books Something Fresh Lord Emsworth Acts for the Best (2001) Publication Order of Jeeves Books My Man Jeeves The Code of the Woosters (1938) Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954) Publication Order of Oldest Member Books The Clicking of Cuthbert The Heart of a Goof (1926) Publication Order of Mr. Mulliner Collections Meet Mr. Mulliner The World of Mr. Mulliner (1972) Publication Order of Monty Bodkin Books The Luck of the Bodkins (1935) Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin (1972) Publication Order of Uncle Fred Books Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939) Publication Order of Standalone Novels William Tell Told Again The Swoop!

Or, How Clarence Saved England (1909) The Girl on the Boat (1922) Publication Order of Short Stories Goodbye to All Cats Publication Order of Short Story Collections The Man Upstairs and Other Stories (1914) The Man with Two Left Feet and Other Stories (1917) Tales from the Drones Club (1982) The World of Wodehouse Clergy (1984) What Ho!: The Best of P.G. Wodehouse (2000) Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books The Globe By the Way Book (1908) Charles Dickens Notes: Something Fresh was published as Something New in the United States. The Coming of Bill was also published under the alternate titles Their Mutual Child (USA) and The White Hope. Jill the Reckless was also titled The Little Warrior. The Clicking of Cuthbert was also published as Golf Without Tears. The Girl on the Boat was also published as Three Men and a Maid. The Adventures of Sally is also known as Mostly Sally. Ukridge is also known as He Rather Enjoyed It. Sam the Sudden was also titled Sam in the Suburbs.

The Heart of a Goof is also known as Divots. Summer Lightning was alternatively titled Fish Preferred. Barmy in Wonderland was also titled Angel Cake. Performing Flea was also published as Author! Author!. Over Seventy was also known as America, I Like You. Something Fishy was also published as The Butler Did It. Frozen Assets was also published as Biffen’s Millions. Company for Henry was also published as The Purloined Paperweight. Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin was also titled The Plot That Thickened. Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen is also known as The Cat-Nappers. The Gem Collector is an earlier serialized version of A Gentleman of Leisure (aka The Intrusion of Jimmy). Luck Stone was written under the pen name of Basil Windham. The Inimitable Jeeve was also published as Jeeves. Right Ho, Jeeves was also known as Brinkley Manor. Ring for Jeeves is also known as The Return of Jeeves. Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit was also published under the title Bertie Wooster Sees It Through. Jeeves in the Offing was also known as How Right You Are, Jeeves.

Much Obliged, Jeeves is also known as Jeeves and the Tie That Binds. Blandings Castle and Elsewhere is also known as Blandings Castle. Lord Emsworth and Others was also published under the title Crime Wave at Blandings. Galahad at Blandings was also published as The Brinkmanship of Galahad Threepwood. A Pelican at Blandings is also known as No Nudes is Good Nudes.

the Drones Club, London, England, UK | Places | LibraryThing ( show numbers ) Related tags 20th century (14) 20th century fiction (3) 20th century literature (5) anthology (22) Bertie Wooster (3) British (26) British fiction (5) british humor (6) British literature (19) classic (7) classics (4) collection (11) comedy (8) Drones Club (5) England (13) English (8) English fiction (3) English literature (16) fiction (164) funny (3) humor (173) Humorous fiction (5) Jeeves (16) Jeeves and Wooster (3) library (6) literature (31) modern literature (4) novel (12) omnibus (6) own (5) paperback (8) read (7) satire (6) short fiction (5) short stories (82) short story (3) stories (8) to-read (7) unread (11) Wodehouse (25) Recommendations Devoted American pilgrims move Jeeves, Bertie Wooster and B

landings Castle to Seattle | Books | The Guardian The Observer Devoted American pilgrims move Jeeves, Bertie Wooster and Blandings Castle to Seattle PG Wodehouse’s biographer joins an annual convention to celebrate the US passion for the most English of comic writers On the left, Stephen Fry as Jeeves, butler to Bertie Wooster, played by Hugh Laurie.

Photograph: ITV Global Saturday 31 October 2015 18.36 EDT Last modified on Friday 11 November 2016 07.36 EST Share on Messenger Close You might expect that the society devoted to the memory of PG Wodehouse and his works would celebrate its biennial “international convention” somewhere in Shropshire, deep in Wodehouse country, perhaps a bread roll’s throw from Blandings Castle. But the strange truth about the author of the Jeeves & Wooster stories is that he is as much honoured – and better remembered – in America than in Britain. Which is one reason why the 18th convention of the Wodehouse Society was held last week in Seattle , world headquarters of Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft and Boeing, grunge capital of the American music business and home of the late Kurt Cobain. For the visiting Wodehouseans, such modernity is somewhat abstract.

Typically for their jamboree, they renamed this cool, booming metropolis Pseattle, in tribute to Rupert (“the P is silent, as in ptarmigan”) Psmith, one of the Master’s (they tend to talk like this) best-loved characters. Yet, as you get to know them, the descent of the Wodehouseans on this remote, foggy isthmus seems rather apt. From the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) to the devotees of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the far west has always nurtured a taste for cults. Major Tom Smith, the convention’s co-chair, reports that his off-beat symposium has attracted delegates from as far afield as Japan, Australia, the Indian subcontinent, the UK, the Netherlands and Russia. He concedes that “there are few, if any, references to Seattle in the Wodehouse canon”, but that will not dampen the revels.

Before the convention wraps up on Sunday there will be spats, toppers, white ties, snifters, banjos, any amount of “rannygazoo” (don’t ask), renderings of the Wodehouse anthem, Bill, and the kind of quasi-literary enthusiasm that runs the gamut from the delirious to the merely demented. Sober, middle-aged persons from stable homes and sensible professions will introduce themselves as “Madeleine Bassett”, “Honoria Glossop” and “Claude Cattermole ‘Catsmeat’ Potter-Pirbright”. This weekend Pseattle has been nothing if not pscintillating. Pinterest PG Wodehouse, the archetypal Englishman buried as an American. Photograph: AP Few 20th-century writers could be more quintessentially English than Pelham Grenville “Plum” Wodehouse.

His name guarantees an escape into a lost world of upper-class frivolity: Mayfair lounge lizards, dreamy, pig-loving earls, inscrutable butlers and, of course, the “mentally negligible” Bertie Wooster and his omniscient manservant Jeeves, who happen to be celebrating their centenary this year. Bertie and Jeeves first sallied forth in the pages of a New York magazine in 1915. So the truth about Wodehouse is that, in his professional life, he was very much an American. He had come to the New World in search of fresh copy, fell in love with Manhattan at first sight, and would devote the rest of his career to selling Britain to America, and vice versa. Manhattan became a second home. Being in New York, he wrote later, “was like being in heaven, without going to all the bother and expense of dying”.

Seattle is not exactly heaven but, in the best traditions of any cult, the 18th convention has done its best to disseminate sweetness and light with a sparkling performance of some famous Wodehouse lyrics by soprano Maria Jette, uplifting talks on “the Modern Wodehouse” and, improbably, “Wodehouse, the Feminist”. For a writer whose obiter dicta about the opposite sex – “she was just a sweet, simple English girl, with about as much brain as would make a jay bird fly crooked” – resonate a long way south of ecstatic, Wodehouse and his work continue to impress a surprising variety of women, some of whom made the pilgrimage to the west coast. Jennifer Scheppers, an Australian who now lives in Bath, has come to Seattle as the author of Plumtopia, a “whimsical” blog written under the pseudonym “Honoria Glossop”. Scheppers won’t hear of Wodehouse’s alleged misogyny. “That completely misses the point,” she says. “You don’t read Wodehouse for insights into the human condition. Actually, I first read Wodehouse to escape the human condition.

The women in his books are neither insipid nor vacuous. Many of them are really quite feisty, with plenty of pep.” Will she attend the convention’s closing gala as “Honoria Glossop”, one of Bertie Wooster’s many fiancees, whose laugh is described as sounding “like a squadron of cavalry charging across a tin bridge”? “Do you mean, will I come in costume?” Scheppers looks horrified. “That’s not really me.” Pressed about the demands of the big night in Pseattle, she acknowledges that mingling on equal terms with Wodehouse’s toffs comes at a price. “Yes,” she confesses. “I was probably going to wash my hair.” Kris Fowler, from St Paul, Minnesota, has been reading Wodehouse since she was 17, and is a veteran of these biennial beanos. For her, the American Wodehousean is less uptight and formal than his English cousin and a more democratic, outdoor creature. She believes that “we are freer with our silliness”. She can say that again.

Here, in the wild west, the amateur bread roll throwing of Bertie and the Drones on a lively club night has been transformed into something closer to an Olympic sport. Senior members of the American Wodehouse Society refer darkly to Chicago ’97 and Houston ’99. Tom Smith insists that Seattle will celebrate costume (he will be dressing up as Lord Brabazon, who also tried to teach his pig to fly), not projectile pastries. “We banned bread roll throwing after Houston,” he mutters, recalling a painful episode. “Red wine was spilt.” Actually, in Houston, where things got seriously out of hand, it was the tortillas that did the real damage. Before Houston, there had been some mysterious “mishaps”, with the suggestion that – in Chicago? No one’s telling – “waiters were injured”. Who knows what Wodehouse would have made of all this? From his first visit to the US in 1904, he had a soft spot for Americans and their rambunctious ways. He would, no doubt, have attributed the New World’s trouble with crusty rolls to “youthful high spirits”.

There could hardly be a more egregious example of his ability to blank out the awkward side of life. The average age of the delegates assembled in Seattle must be closer to 65 than 30. Deprived of their traditional weapons, they channel their wilder passions for Psmith, Ukridge, Mr Mulliner, Lord Emsworth and the rest into fearsome anagrams for Wodehouse characters (GOSSIPERS ROCK LORD I) and novels (BOOKSHELF DUCK NIT). Amid the fun and games, there’s this bitter irony to the fanatical devotion of Wodehouse’s American admirers. Long ago, in 1940, it was his huge overseas audience which was, inadvertently, the ruin of the writer in his prime. At the end of the phoney war, in May 1940, Wodehouse, then living in Le Touquet, was interned by the Nazis after the fall of France. With several hundred British nationals, he was transported to a camp in Upper Silesia, in what is now southern Poland.

“If this is Upper Silesia,” he remarked, “what must Lower Silesia be like?” While Wodehouse was in the camp, thousands of fans wrote to inquire about his wellbeing. At his release in June 1941, on the eve of his 60th birthday, it was partly his determination to reassure his American correspondents that he was alive and well that persuaded him to make the now infamous Berlin broadcasts. His disgrace followed swiftly. Part of the self-justification for his stupidity was that the US was not at war with Nazi Germany. It was a terrible error of judgment, which he paid for throughout the rest of his life. “I’m convinced,” says Major Smith, “that Wodehouse was naive. I know he could be cold and calculating on some things, but I think that on some matters he was naive. He liked people who liked him. I believe he was really interested to communicate with his fan base in the USA – and that became his downfall.” A proper scrutiny of the evidence indicates that none of the more hysterical charges against Wodehouse – of treachery, collaboration and doubtful patriotism – was justified. But the broadcasts made it impossible for Wodehouse to return to postwar Britain.

So he crossed the Atlantic to a village in the Hamptons, where after a long retirement he died on Valentine’s Day 1975. His tombstone is inscribed with the names of his most famous characters – Lord Emsworth, Bertie Wooster and Jeeves – and he is buried as an American citizen on the south shore of Long Island. P.G. WODEHOUSE, JEEVES, BUTLER, HUMOR P.G. WODEHOUSE, JEEVES, BUTLER, HUMOR News Several years ago, in the course of interviewing the author Frank McCourt, I asked him to name some of his favorite writers. One of those he mentioned was P. G. Wodehouse, and when it came out that I had never read a word of Wodehouse, he said, "Ohhh," which I took to mean that I'd somehow failed a test. But it quickly became apparent that I'd misread that "Ohhh," because he went on to say, "How I envy you. You have such a thrill in front of you." And he was absolutely right. Reading Wodehouse for the first time really is a pleasure like no other.

Because whatever you think it's going to be, it's not like that at all. I think I expected something along the lines of stories about dotty aunts, elderly earls, silly twits and poker-faced butlers engaged in fey dialogue and plots filled with mistaken identities and foolish wagers and all the other feckless sins of the English upper class. But that, as anyone who has read a Wodehouse novel will tell you, is merely what they are about. It's like saying that "Moby Dick" is a fish story. Wodehouse himself described his plots as musical comedies without the music, which might sound pretty dreadful, except that no one reads Wodehouse for the plot. You read them for the language and the humor, which is more or less the same thing in his case. And no one can really tell you what that's like. But OK, fool that I am, I'll try, by quoting maybe my all-time favorite Wodehouse paragraph, from "Pigs Have Wings": Try Newsweek for only $1.25 per week "'I haven't time to listen,' said Lady Constance, and swept from the room.

These chats with the head of the family nearly always ended in her sweeping from the room. Unless, of course, they took place out of doors, when she merely swept away." The jokes in Wodehouse aren't like anyone else's jokes, because they depend less on punchlines than on how he manipulates language--flawlessly, but with a well-honed sense of fun, as in this passage from "Quick Service": "As a rule, this masterful woman shared with Napoleon the ability to sleep the moment the head touched the pillow. Others might count sheep, but she had no need for such adventitious aids to repose." These are sentences that kid themselves, and there are plenty more where they came from. Really, though, you have to discover it for yourself. And there is, as McCourt told me, only one first time.

You'd like to have that initial thrill again, but instead you have to settle for discovering merely new corners of this oddly wonderful literary kingdom like no other, whether it be Blandings Castle or the Drones Club or Bertie Wooster and his valet, Jeeves (yes, Virginia, he is more than merely a search engine) or the enormous pig, the Empress of Blandings or, my favorite of all Wodehouse creations, Uncle Fred, the most wonderful reprobate ever committed to paper. Evelyn Waugh got it just right when he said, "Wodehouse's idyllic world can never stale. He will continue to release future generations from captivity that may be more irksome than our own. He has made a world for us to live in and delight in." Now, though, there is something almost like another first time, since Overlook Press has graced us with a new series of small, affordable hardcover editions of several Wodehouse books, including "Pigs Have Wings," "Right Ho, Jeeves," "Heavy Weather" and maybe the weirdest Wodehouse of all, "Laughing Gas," a farce about Hollywood wherein two people exchange brains while visiting the dentist.

You can't say I haven't warned you: again, you must not pay the slightest attention to the plots. The best thing about these editions, well, setting aside the not inconsiderable facts that they are well-made and cheap at $15.95 or $16.95 per book, is their covers. Much as I hate to criticize anything about the Penguin paperback editions of Wodehouse with which we have all made do for years--since if there had been no Penguin Wodehouse, there might have been no Wodehouse at all--they did have lousy covers. They were, in a word, insipid. The people on the covers quite often bore no relation to the people in the books.

The best, or worst, depending on how you looked at it, was the Penguin volume called "Uncle Fred," which contains three novels about that distinguished gentleman: "Uncle Fred in the Springtime," "Uncle Dynamite" and my all-time favorite Wodehouse, "Cocktail Time." (For the record, McCourt's favorite is "Ukridge.") The figure on the cover was a corpulent, choleric man who looked sort of like the old character actor Eugene Pallette with a walrus mustache. It looked nothing like Uncle Fred, a blithe and imperturbable fellow who must look, I have always thought, like Peter O'Toole. You just know the Overlook editions will not make this mistake when they get around to the Uncle Fred stories. Look what they've done with Bertie Wooster, rendered by the Penguin illustrators as both callow and stupid. On the Overlook edition of "The Code of the Woosters," he's slim, handsome and clueless, which is how Wodehouse portrays him. If I had encountered these editions before now, I would have been a fan years ago.

Yeah, yeah, it's not the covers, it's what's inside that counts, but you have to get people inside before they can enjoy what's there, and that's what covers do. You've got to at least start out judging books by their covers. Enough. I just hope these grand looking books find their way into the hands of a receptive reader with an open mind and a lot of time to kill. Someone who's never read Wodehouse, someone with a pure heart, someone who's in for a thrill. I envy you.

Question: Which author's works feature 'Blandings Castle' and 'The Drones Club'?
Answer: P.G. WODEHOUSE